Winch Mount
One of the best pieces of vehicle recovery equipment is a winch. Lifts, tires, and lockers are all nice, but you can still get stuck with them. A winch can pull you out of anything and help others, too.
I thought about getting a new front bumper that has a winch mount built-in, but opted for the more economical approach and kept my stock bumper by going with a Detours Backbone with light bar. This mount attaches behind the bumper and does not sacrifice your angle of approach.
The winch mount came primered and ready for paint or whatever form of protection you choose. In this case, I chose to paint it with some rubbery paint.
The mount and light bar pieces are all painted black. Time for mounting.
The bumper and end caps need to come off. Here is the original setup we're working with.
The bumper and end caps have been removed. There were just a few bolts holding it on. Now it look a little naked.
The winch mount is now installed. Detours even gave me new Grade 8 bolts to replace the stock bolts with. It's held onto the framerail with six or seven bolts per side. This thing ain't going anywhere.
Now it's time to mask off where we want to cut the original bumper so that it will fit around the winch mount. Remember, measure twice, cut once.
Here's the cut bumper. Despite my previous advice, I still measured four times and cut five times.
With the bumper all cut to fit, we need to mount the winch as some of the bolts will be covered by the bumper.
After the winch is all wired up, the bumper and end caps get installed and it's all buttoned up for clean look. I also took this time to cut off the bottom of the end caps and center piece as well.
Hey, is that factory? It would have looked so had I not been the one cutting metal.